Ren Schofield's Container took the world of underground electronic music by storm with the debut LP in 2011 (SP 007LP). Following massive amounts of touring and the powerful follow-up LP, LP, in 2012 (SP 025LP), the project became a must-experience staple everywhere from U.S. basements to Berghain. After two fantastic EP recordings on Morphine (Treatment, DOSER 016EP, 2013) and Liberation Technologies, Container returns with the first full-length album since 2012, simply titled LP. LP is the most explosive offering in the Container oeuvre, capturing the raw and unhinged essence of the live Container experience while exploring new compositional and sonic limits. Opener "Eject" wastes no time with its instant feedback squeal backed by a barrage of pounding, distorted percussion. The concomitant storm of misfiring FX and derailed drum patterns sets the stage for the aural pandemonium to come. "Remover" and "Peripheral" are dense and intricate structural compositions ruthless in their delivery and infectious in rhythm, stretching the known limits of the project's sound into welcome new realms. Tracks like "Appliance" and "Cushion" find Schofield in his most vicious form, with floor-destroying tempos and a miraculously adroit sense of arrangement. Somehow, LP manages to simultaneously be the most palatable and most damaged contribution yet. Patchwork polyrhythm motifs, melodic (albeit fully blasted) hook sensibilities, and ballistic synthesized sounds are melted down together and shaped into some of the most rewarding, enjoyable works yet heard on any of the LP offerings. The closing "Calibrate" pounds with a hypnotic churn, growing into a stasis of red-hot squelches and deranged electronic malfunction that recalls some of the earliest tape works Schofield created. LP gives a sense of "full circle," blurring the end and the beginning into a baffling riddle that can only be admired and never solved. Schofield has enigmatically crafted his most insane Container album to be the most architecturally dexterous and club-minded, never compromising his fundamentals while evolving the project in an utterly satisfying fashion. LP is his most locked-in full-length recording to date, long overdue and absolutely essential.

Sintetizzatrice is the first recorded document of the collaboration between veteran DJ and producer Donato Dozzy and female vocalist Anna Caragnano. Through his solo work, and in his collaboration with Giuseppe Tilleci (Neel) as Voices from the Lake, Dozzy has achieved some of the most remarkable vistas contemporary electronic music has seen since the turn of this century. By removing himself from his areas of mastery to shift his focus on the voice, he has achieved a new peak with Sintetizzatrice. Over nine tracks, Dozzy works exclusively with the voice of Rome-based vocalist Anna Caragnano, with no other instruments. Heavy layering and effects processes are used to display an astoundingly versatile voice-centric vocabulary. Rarely can a record morph from R&B to kosmische, through traditional Italian folk music, to Fluxus styles and traditional chamber choir with no additional instrumentation. Just a singular, beautiful voice. The results are simply phenomenal. With the opening, "Introduzione," an immeasurable cosmic weight arrives and remains through the duration of the album. "Star Cloud" ascends with melancholy extended drones that evaporate concepts like time and being, rendering basic human perceptions void all the way through "Parallelo." "Parola" dances around the stereo field with dazing rhythms and melodies, while "Festa (A Mottola)" is an homage to the traditional music found in the rural region where, coincidentally, both Dozzy's mother and Caragnano were born and raised. The album's closing pieces "Love Without Sound" and "Conclusione" hit hard in a way to which no words can do justice. By fearlessly entering uncharted territories, Dozzy and Caragnano have made a collaboration which is truly experimental. Sintetizzatrice is a grand debut for Anna Caragnano and a fantastic twist for Donato Dozzy. Produced and mixed by Dozzy at Alaska Studio, Rome, in 2014. Mastered by Giuseppe Tilleci at EnissLab Studio, Rome. Transferred to tape by Pietro Micioni, Angelo Compagnoni, and Massimo Zuccaroli at Village Studio, Rome. Cut by Christoph Grote-Beverborg at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. Front cover painting by Angela Scaramuzzi. Cover design by Koto Hirai.

LP version. Sintetizzatrice is the first recorded document of the collaboration between veteran DJ and producer Donato Dozzy and female vocalist Anna Caragnano. Through his solo work, and in his collaboration with Giuseppe Tilleci (Neel) as Voices from the Lake, Dozzy has achieved some of the most remarkable vistas contemporary electronic music has seen since the turn of this century. By removing himself from his areas of mastery to shift his focus on the voice, he has achieved a new peak with Sintetizzatrice. Over nine tracks, Dozzy works exclusively with the voice of Rome-based vocalist Anna Caragnano, with no other instruments. Heavy layering and effects processes are used to display an astoundingly versatile voice-centric vocabulary. Rarely can a record morph from R&B to kosmische, through traditional Italian folk music, to Fluxus styles and traditional chamber choir with no additional instrumentation. Just a singular, beautiful voice. The results are simply phenomenal. With the opening, "Introduzione," an immeasurable cosmic weight arrives and remains through the duration of the album. "Star Cloud" ascends with melancholy extended drones that evaporate concepts like time and being, rendering basic human perceptions void all the way through "Parallelo." "Parola" dances around the stereo field with dazing rhythms and melodies, while "Festa (A Mottola)" is an homage to the traditional music found in the rural region where, coincidentally, both Dozzy's mother and Caragnano were born and raised. The album's closing pieces "Love Without Sound" and "Conclusione" hit hard in a way to which no words can do justice. By fearlessly entering uncharted territories, Dozzy and Caragnano have made a collaboration which is truly experimental. Sintetizzatrice is a grand debut for Anna Caragnano and a fantastic twist for Donato Dozzy. Produced and mixed by Dozzy at Alaska Studio, Rome, in 2014. Mastered by Giuseppe Tilleci at EnissLab Studio, Rome. Transferred to tape by Pietro Micioni, Angelo Compagnoni, and Massimo Zuccaroli at Village Studio, Rome. Cut by Christoph Grote-Beverborg at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. Front cover painting by Angela Scaramuzzi. Cover design by Koto Hirai.

David Borden, born Christmas Day, 1938, in Boston, Massachusetts, is an American minimalist composer and electronic music pioneer. He was one of the first people to beta test Bob Moog's modular synthesizer systems. His Earthquack Records imprint inspired Mimi Johnson to found the legendary Lovely Music, Ltd. with Robert Ashley. He formed the first all-synthesizer ensemble, Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Company, in 1969. If there were ever a missing link in American minimalism, Borden is it. Music for Amplified Keyboard Instruments is his masterpiece, released in 1981 to little fanfare on the now-defunct Dutch label Red Records. As its reputation has grown, most listeners have had to settle for compressed YouTube clips and poor vinyl-to-digital transfers, with original copies increasingly rare and expensive. Now, 34 years after its original release, Spectrum Spools presents the first reissue of Music for Amplified Keyboard Instruments, after recovering in Borden's private archives the only known safety master. Music for Amplified Keyboard Instruments contains four pieces, each utilizing three players and six keyboard instruments. "Etsy Point, Summer 1978" begins with a mournful, ominous mood and slowly blossoms into an immense, humid labyrinth of colorful, buzzing textures and howling melodies. "The Continuing Story of Counterpoint" is a 12-part cycle for synthesizers, acoustic instruments, and voice, upon which Borden labored for over 11 years. Parts nine and six, included here, are miraculous achievements in prodigious playing technique, remarkable mosaic-like structure, and aural magnitude, operating in the relative terrain of Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians and Terry Riley's Dervishes pieces. The "Counterpoint" pieces here are rigidly arranged with breakneck key changes and intricate time signature maneuvering. The resulting audio conjures kaleidoscopic patterns of beautiful melodies and compositional anatomy unparalleled in much of American minimalism. "Enfield in Winter" displays some of Borden's more ambient leanings, with slow, morphing drones and gentle pad sounds that erupt into shimmering patterns backed by a grandiose chord progression. Music for Amplified Keyboards represents a veritable zenith in Borden's corpus; a radiant achievement in sonic elegance, experimentation, and ambitious composition technique, and a work of the highest archival significance. Music for Amplified Keyboard Instruments was remastered with love and transparency by Giuseppe Tillieci at EnissLab, Rome. These newly remastered works are superior to the original vinyl master, giving the world a chance to hear this remarkable work in the highest possible fidelity across multiple formats. Includes extensive liner notes and photos by Borden.

LP version. David Borden, born Christmas Day, 1938, in Boston, Massachusetts, is an American minimalist composer and electronic music pioneer. He was one of the first people to beta test Bob Moog's modular synthesizer systems. His Earthquack Records imprint inspired Mimi Johnson to found the legendary Lovely Music, Ltd. with Robert Ashley. He formed the first all-synthesizer ensemble, Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Company, in 1969. If there were ever a missing link in American minimalism, Borden is it. Music for Amplified Keyboard Instruments is his masterpiece, released in 1981 to little fanfare on the now-defunct Dutch label Red Records. As its reputation has grown, most listeners have had to settle for compressed YouTube clips and poor vinyl-to-digital transfers, with original copies increasingly rare and expensive. Now, 34 years after its original release, Spectrum Spools presents the first reissue of Music for Amplified Keyboard Instruments, after recovering in Borden's private archives the only known safety master. Music for Amplified Keyboard Instruments contains four pieces, each utilizing three players and six keyboard instruments. "Etsy Point, Summer 1978" begins with a mournful, ominous mood and slowly blossoms into an immense, humid labyrinth of colorful, buzzing textures and howling melodies. "The Continuing Story of Counterpoint" is a 12-part cycle for synthesizers, acoustic instruments, and voice, upon which Borden labored for over 11 years. Parts nine and six, included here, are miraculous achievements in prodigious playing technique, remarkable mosaic-like structure, and aural magnitude, operating in the relative terrain of Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians and Terry Riley's Dervishes pieces. The "Counterpoint" pieces here are rigidly arranged with breakneck key changes and intricate time signature maneuvering. The resulting audio conjures kaleidoscopic patterns of beautiful melodies and compositional anatomy unparalleled in much of American minimalism. "Enfield in Winter" displays some of Borden's more ambient leanings, with slow, morphing drones and gentle pad sounds that erupt into shimmering patterns backed by a grandiose chord progression. Music for Amplified Keyboards represents a veritable zenith in Borden's corpus; a radiant achievement in sonic elegance, experimentation, and ambitious composition technique, and a work of the highest archival significance. Music for Amplified Keyboard Instruments was remastered with love and transparency by Giuseppe Tillieci at EnissLab, Rome. These newly remastered works are superior to the original vinyl master, giving the world a chance to hear this remarkable work in the highest possible fidelity across multiple formats. Includes extensive liner notes and photos by Borden.

There's a large empty space on your record shelf, in between Nurse With Wound's Space Music and Pete Namlook & Tetsu Inoue's Shades of Orion: a gap between the cold, lifeless experimentations of Steven Stapleton -- space heard as a largely silent void punctuated by the sudden and infrequent arrival of massive objects -- and the romantic imaginings of '90s space ambient which filled space with idealistic longings of earth. There aren't many records to put right between those two. But now Neel has given us one, Phobos, and it's both a lustrous and shadowy beauty. After debuting stellar live performances at MUTEK in Montreal as well as Berlin Atonal, the time to release an album documenting the material has arrived. Phobos is the debut LP from Neel, well-known as the sonic mastermind behind the Voices From The Lake project, together with his fellow Italian DJ, friend, and cosmic joker Donato Dozzy. Neel is a young mastering engineer with golden ears, and through Voices From The Lake, he and Dozzy have brought a level of immaculate sound production to techno which, to be honest, simply hasn't existed before. Alone, however, you might feel Neel sounds even better. Phobos is a carefully-cut gem, reflecting layers of patient detail and filling the full frequency range with a perfect balance. Voices From The Lake is an organic project, with a tight focus on water and life, but Phobos has leapt to the opposite end of the spectrum. You cannot take a sampler's magnifying glass to a place that does not transmit sound -- another kind of imagination and technique is required. The sonic results are a real treat. This album more than most, will benefit from whatever outrageous hi-fi you can swing at it. Don't just play it loud -- play it well. Legend has it Neel constructed Phobos out of an elaborate narrative concerning Phobos, the larger of Mars' two moons, Fear and its brother Dread, the son of Aries and Aphrodite, the moon which sets twice across the Martian sky each day, and which each century draws closer to its red parent by one earthly meter, in a 50-million year gravitational tease that can only end in destruction. Further investigators will have to tease out the real details of that story from Neel, but for listeners the album slowly traverses through deep space over the course of a single hour-long track, patiently passing slow-turning objects and desolate plains, until the final minutes where it unpacks itself -- presenting all the pent-up emotions from a long trip -- in a blissful moment that marks the end and beginning of this voyage into space alone.

Petit Cochon is the third LP and debut album for Spectrum Spools by James Donadio under his Prostitutes guise. From Psychedelic Black, the self-released debut LP limited to only 100, to the esteemed Crushed Interior on Digitalis, it's safe to say Donadio has crafted a style unmatched in the climate of contemporary electronic music. The top-shelf EPs on Mira and Diagonal were a small glimpse into all that has led up to the new full-length. Petit Cochon is a total burner, no exceptions. From the opening cryptic threat of "Powerful Magnets" into the serrated pummeling of "The Bluffer's Corporation," it becomes clear very quickly that no punches will be pulled and that Petit Cochon is a heavy affair. Donadio's signature sample manipulation in tandem with live electronics and particular mixing processes hit new highs with the manic clatter of "Suck Out the Reason," which shifts and shuffles between huge snare drums and whispers from the void. "Stains Left Unnamed," like its title suggests, is a grim and filthy ordeal with head-spinning delay ringing alongside jagged and fractured rhythm. This album has cuts for the club-heads and for those locked away from the rest of the world, and as a whole serves as the perfect and logical next full-length in the Prostitutes cannon. Cut by CGB at Dubplates + Mastering, Berlin. Mastered by James Plotkin.

If previous releases for Nihilist, Arbor and his own Catholic Tapes established Chicago's Brett Naucke as one of the more accomplished practitioners in the American synth underground, Seed, his debut LP for Spectrum Spools, is a veritable career apex, brimming with sonic ingenuity, detail, and mastery over both instrument and musical form. It is hard to fathom due to the sheer diversity of sound and affectations of the eight individual pieces on the album, but Seed was recorded -- almost impossibly -- with the same synth patch, slightly modified for the unveiling of each track. This testifies to the intensity of Naucke's macroscopic conceptual vision for Seed. Each track's complex arc points towards a mind rooted in academic electronic processes, keenly trying to surprise and disarm by prying open new textures, rhythms and structures. But Naucke has struck a perfect balance that unites this avant-garde intuition with a compositional sophistication -- bringing each unique molecule of sound into cohesive songs and further still into a supremely listenable and closed album that operates entirely on its own logic. Recorded at home, as well as an isolated environment in Miami, Florida, and then mixed tediously over a six-month period, Seed is a record displaying Naucke's instrumental proficiency as much as it points to his painstaking studio dedication. The results are nothing short of startling. Naucke achieves a perfect synchronicity between the intrigue of each shimmering, crystalline sound that seems to exist infinitely within its own micro-habitat, and the larger organic whole to which it contributes. Combining delicate ambient synthscapes, snarled electronic pulses and subtle and beautiful melodic phrasings, Seed hovers in an emotional sphere very much of its own. Each piece stitches together resplendent widescreen atmosphere with an intricate coldness and mournful elegance. Over the course of this album, Naucke has come as close as any to making the machines he has used sprout from the same soil as the organic landscapes he so perfectly renders on this album. Mastered at Dubplates + Mastering, Berlin, by CGB, January 2014.

When the Aquaplano records were first released in 2008 and 2009, emerging out of Hardwax with little fanfare, they were distinctly out of step with the way techno appeared to be heading. The minimal detour was reaching its logical endpoint, and producers were returning to the 1990s for inspiration, with Berghain and Sandwell District at the vanguard of a new techno movement. What the Aquaplano sessions shared in common were slower BPMs and finding inspiration in the 1990s, but there they parted ways. The influences these Italians were drawing on were rather different, returning to tribal rhythms and ambient textures to sketch out a much more heady, psychedelic form of techno. The results were a perfect balance of hypnotic beats and swirling atmosphere geared for a broken-in dancefloor or the hazy afterhours. Across these two records Donato Dozzy and Nuel would go a long way towards creating the template for a brand of deep, atmospheric techno that has become much more prominent in the years since. And while many have sought to imitate this sound, few -- if any -- have matched what first emerged from the Aquaplano sessions. After only being available in a very limited run, it is fitting that the sonic blueprints provided by Dozzy and Nuel are now available again -- and much more widely -- at a time when their influence is as strong as it has ever been. All music produced and mixed by Donato Scaramuzzi and Manuel Fogliata at Nautical One Studio in San Felice Cireco, Italy, between 2007 and 2008. Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin, December 2013.